Tour de Confession: Lance Armstrong’s Oprah moment

Lance Armstrong and Oprah Winfrey. Never have two people needed each other more.

This is the perfect example of a public relations recovery campaign in action; and the main protagonists have everything to gain and nothing to lose.

In one corner, you have Lance Armstrong. Deposed and doped-up cycling superstar hoping to resurrect his tattered reputation.

In the other corner, the great Oprah Winfrey, whose rapid slide out of the daily public consciousness has been alarming since deciding to go it on her OWN.

Talk about a relationship of convenience.

Two people, using each other, to climb back into the public spotlight.

A celebrity’s gotta do, what a celebrity’s gotta do, right?

In what will undoubtedly be a PR case study for years to come, the engineering of Lance Armstrong’s comeback is something to behold. And by engineering, I mean every quote by an anonymous source, every ‘leak’ to a major media outlet, every appearance prior to the main telecast, has been carefully crafted and timed. All to culminate in a grand moment of repentance.

Or actually two grand moments. Oprah has decided to make this a two-part confession. Why waste a great media ‘get’ on simply one show?

The stage was set when after nearly two months of silence, Armstrong’s lawyer made some oblique statements to the New York Times, about a possible confession. A leak such as this prepped the path for his admission of guilt, and gave Armstrong’s team an idea of the type of public reaction they could be facing.

Sure enough, one week later, we read of Armstrong’s performance in front of the people who work at Livestrong, his eponymous charity. This makes all sorts of sense as they have been calling for a statement or apology – likely to stem the reputation battering they’ve been taking in tandem since the release of the damning World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) report.

Now? We read of a series of quotes by ‘sources close to the story’ who are creating buzz about what we can all expect to hear from Armstrong on this Thursday night’s Oprah telecast.

Even Oprah herself took to the twittersphere to say so:

Just wrapped with @lancearmstrong More than 2 1/2 hours . He came READY!

To be sure, now that this interview has been taped, every inch of it will be scrutinized by Armstrong’s team of PR professionals and lawyers before it hits the airwaves.

The post-interview reaction will be instantaneous. Everyone will have an opinion (including me). The likelihood is that while Oprah is basking in her glory, Armstrong will remain silent until the noise dies down. Then he’ll need to decide whether he will confess under oath to WADA, revealing all he knew, in order to reinstate his lifetime ban from the sport.

Nobody said the road to repentance was easy. But for Lance Armstrong, this is just like one more climb in the Pyrenees. Except now he has to do it under his own steam.

Elissa Freeman is a writer and PR consultant. Living in Toronto, Canada, she is a regular contributor to PR Daily & canada.com. Named: Twitter's Top 52 PR pros, Top 75 Badass Females, Top 150 Toronto... read more Influencers.View author's profile